Epilogophilia: Stranglehold
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: One person can make all the difference in the world.


Disclaimer: These are not my characters and I make no profit from them.

**Author's Note**: The original epilogue for this episode was one of my favorites--thoughtful and intense and, like a good cake, it really didn't need any frosting. That was Marianne Clarkson at the helm on the original script.

You never really die if you live on through what you've done for others.

**Stranglehold**

_McCormick's friend, Kate Murphy, calls him up, saying she might be in trouble and asking him to meet her. McCormick drafts the judge, and they both discover the meeting place is an auditorium and Katie, who was an actress, has turned to wrestling to support herself._

_She is upbeat, and says her concerns about a missing friend were probably unwarranted, but in the wrestling match that follows, she collapses and dies. Mark is stricken, and certain that there has been foul play. Despite the lack of evidence, he convinces Hardcastle to help him and the judge, in turn, persuades a friend, Lucy, (and a friend of hers) to pose as wrestlers, in an attempt to get inside promoter Marty Torrances' operation._

_They make progress in the investigation when Torrances' ex-girlfriend tells them he's shipping girls overseas. Using her information, they find evidence that Torrance has drugged Lucy, and they arrive in the nick of time to prevent them from putting her on a plane to A Fate Worse Than Death._

_In the canon epilogue, McCormick explains what Kate meant to him. _

**Epilogue**—by L. M. Lewis

Mark talked and Hardcastle listened. There wasn't all that much to the story, really, just that Katie Murphy had been there for him at a very bad time.

_A bad place, he meant._

That, too, of course. And the casual statement that he'd had no visitors while he'd been there, in Quentin—_he had racing friends, he had Flip—_had been made almost in passing, as a given, understood.

Distance might have been the reason, Hardcastle supposed. He had wound up almost four hundred miles from LA; that would have discouraged casual visitation. Then there was the awkwardness of such visits; some people would use that excuse.

And the part about no family. He'd known that about the kid right from the start, from his file, and the discovery of an absentee father had done nothing to change the fundamental truth of it. Really, there wasn't much to the story that he hadn't already known on some factual level, except for Katie's fortuitous intervention.

But he'd never heard McCormick admit any of it. He'd never heard him explain what it had felt like, how close he had come to breaking. Those things had never been discussed, not before this.

He stepped into the house, down into the den, and over to the window where he'd been before. McCormick still stood where he'd left him, staring out at the ocean, though more likely in another time and place entirely.

It meant something, Hardcastle supposed, that he could say even that much now. It might have been the circumstances, or maybe the passage of time, but it seemed as though the kid was slowly starting to open the door to all of that. "I got it out," he'd said, as though he'd surprised himself as well.

_If you'll listen, he'll talk._

The judge frowned. He wasn't sure. They'd gotten along pretty well for two years now; why rock the boat? Why ask for trouble? There'd be anger; there'd have to be. Why not leave well enough alone?

_Excuses . . . and it's not four hundred miles; it isn't even four hundred yards._

He exhaled slowly. He thought about breakfast. _If he can't sleep, at least he ought to eat._ He headed into the kitchen to rustle something up.

00000

Bacon and eggs and juice and toast, and he was just pulling the last two slices from the toaster when he heard the front door opening.

"Breakfast," he hollered. There were footsteps in the hallway. He finished putting plates on the table just as McCormick came in.

"Sorry," he said, "I'da done that."

"Nah," the judge said, "you were busy—"

"Morbidly dwelling on the past?" Mark shook his head. "Well, coulda done that and flipped eggs at the same time."

Nonchalance with a layer of sardonicism, the shift in tone left Hardcastle standing, mouth slightly open. He finally set the pan of bacon down. Mark reached for the pitcher and filled both glasses before he sat down.

The judge realized he was still standing there, and still looking somewhat amazed. He finally closed his mouth, pulled out his own chair, and sat down. Then a moment later muttered, "I thought you might—"

"Dwelling on it doesn't help, you know," Mark said. He spoke sharply, but it seemed more out of an urgent need to take the floor than anger. "I mean, Kate was one of the good parts, so it's okay to remember her, but the rest of it—"

He'd stopped abruptly, as if even admitting there _was_ a rest of it was more than he was willing to do. He dropped his gaze to his plate and dug into his food with an enthusiasm that bordered on parody.

"Nobody's saying you _have _to talk about it—".

"Good, because I'm not gonna."

"I just thought—"

"You wouldn't like what you'd hear."

McCormick looked defiant, as if he were challenging anyone to get another word out of him on the subject.

A couple seconds of silence slipped by and Hardcastle finally took a breath and said, in exasperation, "Who says I have to like it?"

Mark blinked once. "Well," he said, "it was kinda your idea." He looked down at his plate again and pushed some food around on it, not taking another bite.

Then he spoke again, without making eye contact. "Kinda figures, maybe you'd think it's a good idea . . . I suppose it is—for some guys. I mean—some of those guys in there are so dangerous they should never be out on the street again. Really. I've met 'em." There was an almost invisible shiver.

"But the place doesn't _fix_ anybody. You're never gonna convince me of that." He frowned, and then added, in a near mutter, "How the hell could it? You go inside and all the rules change; the meaner you are, the more likely you are to survive. Anything good gets squashed flat."

"Didn't squash you." He hadn't realized he was going to say it out loud until he already had. Too late to call it back. Anyway, maybe he didn't want to, and it had put a halt to McCormick's unselfconscious monologue.

The younger man was fiddling with his fork.

"No," he finally said, "I guess not . . . I survived."

He put the fork down and sat back in his chair, hands clasped loosely in his lap. Still no eye contact.

"I think I was pretending some of the time, but after a while you don't know which part is really you, and which is the act. I think that's what I meant when I said that was the day I was going to crack." He grimaced.

"And then into that walked someone who was really good—_extraordinarily_ good. It was like looking through a clear piece of glass into another world. Yeah, I could only look at it, but at least I knew it was still out there. All I had to do was hang on and . . . and not become that other guy."

"It was a lucky thing," Hardcastle said.

"Lucky, yeah," Mark smiled thinly, "that's about it. Just luck. And once you know what can happen, and what you're capable of becoming . . ."

"Or what you are capable of _not_ becoming," the judge said a little insistently.

McCormick lifted his gaze for just a moment. "I suppose . . . but, like I said, if she hadn't come that day, I think it would've turned out different." He sighed. "I just wish I coulda been there for her the way she was for me."

"Maybe." Hardcastle looked thoughtful. "_Might_ be it all happens for a reason. She was there for you so you could be there for somebody else. We pay back the people who've helped us by helping other people."

Mark gave that one a hard study, then shook his head saying, "Nice theory, Judge, but Katie's still dead."

"Yeah, but not really. Not as long as the people she helped are still alive. See, every time one of them helps somebody else, she's helping, too. That's how it works. We weren't just put here to breathe and eat scrambled eggs."

"No," Mark smiled slightly, "we were put here to clip hedges, too."

Hardcastle doused his own quick smile with a perfectly believable scowl.

The younger man's expression had gone a little sad, though it didn't appear for a moment that he'd believed the scowl was for anything but show.

"For Katie," he finally said, "I'll have to do a topiary. She deserved the best."


End file.
